Social Enterprise Impact Lab project

The Social Enterprise Impact Lab (SEIL) project is an action research project and meta-evaluation of evaluation and impact measurement processes used by Australian social enterprises. 

 SEIL was co-funded by Lord Mayor’s Charitable Foundation and Family Life, and involved five organisations: 

1. Centre for Education and Research in Environmental Strategies
2. Good Cycles
3. The Asylum Seeker Resource Centre (ASRC)
4. Earth Worker
5. Family Life
    

The purposes of the project were to: 

• develop insights about what measures matter in advancing social impacts of social enterprise
• provide practical assistance to small to medium-sized social enterprises by advising them on how to measure impacts and enabling peer learning through the research process
• grow an evidence base on effective social enterprise evaluation approaches, by producing a library of common impact evaluation indicators
• develop online tools to support future practice
   

The work has produced an advanced online data dashboard prototype, which is freely available for use from the SEIL website.
 

Project timeframe

December 2017 – July 2020

Research team

• Professor Jo Barraket, Research leader
• Dr Kiros Hiruy, project Manager
• Professor Robyn Eversole
• Professor Jane Farmer
• Professor Helana Scheepers
• Dr Andrew Joyce
• Rebecca Hutton
   

This project was funded by a grant from the Lord Mayor’s Charitable Foundation and co-investment from Family Life.

Please direct any enquiries to Dr Kiros Hiruy.